The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2008
There’s really not much to say here. One was a tight race between two very deserving performances, and the other was a career achievement award to a very deserving actress — for the complete wrong film.
Best Actor – 2008
And the nominees were…
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Jenkins — Jenkins finally got a chance to have a lead role of his own, after years of amazing character work in such films as (so that way you can be like, “He was in that? Who was he? Oh yeah!”): The Indian in the Cupboard, There’s Something About Mary, Me, Myself & Irene, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Changing Lanes, Stealing Harvard, Intolerable Cruelty, I Heart Huckabees, Six Feet Under (TV show, but, kind of well-known), North Country, The Kingdom, Step Brothers, Burn After Reading, Let Me In … the list goes on. Not really and on. Just on. I hit all the relevant ones. This film is by the guy who made The Station Agent, that little indie that everyone seemed to love. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2007
Dare I say it? Did they actually get both of these right? Yeah, they did. Frighteningly so. Best Actor was a no-decision. This was perhaps the best male lead performance of the decade. Best Actress was between two very, very good performances, and in my mind, they picked the correct one, though I’d have been happy with either. Hooray, good decisions.
Best Actor – 2007
And the nominees were…
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
George Clooney — In my mind, without Daniel Day Lewis going all ape shit on this category, Clooney wins this hands down. He gave an amazing performance in this film, and it’s a shame he didn’t win. But really, with Mr. Plainview in the category, he’s a distant second choice. But still, he’s great in this film. He’s a lawyer who is his firm’s “fixer” — think the Winston Wolf of the legal world. He makes problems go away. And when he finds out his mentor, Tom Wilkinson, went crazy in a deposition room, he starts dealing with that. Slowly he figures out a conspiracy, and, when bad shit starts to happen, his loyalties begin to sway. It’s a very good performance, and I hate that I can’t vote for it. But… (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2006
More blandness. Weak, weak categories. To the point where the people I’m voting for are purely for the people and absolutely not for the performances. There’s almost nothing to say about these. They’re just — not interesting.
Best Actor – 2006
And the nominees were…
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
DiCaprio — Why — and I mean this from the bottom, top and center of my heart — would they nominate Leo for Blood Diamond and not for The Departed? I mean, seriously. All he does in this is put on a South African accent, run around a bit, and die. I’m pretty sure that’s it. The Departed was seriously a hell of a performance. I know he refused to campaign for it, but, when has that stopped anyone? You missed the boat, Academy. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2005
Come Oscar night, these were two “no-brainer” wins, even though, in hindsight, they seem — well, one of them, anyway — like upsets. It’s strange how one’s allegiances can change based on time, other nominations, and lack of death.
Anyway, let’s check these out…
Best Actor – 2005
And the nominees were…
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night & Good Luck
Philip Seymour Hoffman — One of my favorite things to do when looking at awards — because I’m all about random patterns and useless data — is see, when each person wins, where their name fell within the alphabetical order of nominees. It’s like when they rank the winning percentages of the post positions in the Kentucky Derby. And they tell you that a certain post position has only won once, while another one has won the most times. Well, I haven’t done anything like that — yet — but I do find it interesting that his last name begins with H and he’s the first nominee alphabetically. I am curious though where he fits into the pantheon of alphabetized actors, and whether him being first helped or hurt his theoretical chances, and whether or not I could turn this into a thing, and use it to further predict awards races that are pretty much decided come Oscar night anyway. Yes, these are the things I think about. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2004
These two were pretty much a foregone conclusion. Everyone in the world knew that Jamie Foxx couldn’t lose. His Ray Charles was astounding, so he deserved this all the way. There really wasn’t anyone who could have beaten him. And in Actress, someone thought it was a good idea to make the race about Hilary vs. Annette Round Two instead of about the actress who was actually the most deserving in the race — so, that was pretty clear cut as well (Annette was not winning).
I really don’t have all too much to say here, since the Academy got one of them right, and one of them wrong. But the one they got wrong is one they’d normally get wrong, and it’s only made worse by the fact that she’s won one already and isn’t that good of an actress to have two.
Best Actor – 2004
And the nominees were…
Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda
Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Jamie Foxx, Ray (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2003
These were fun. The Best Actress race was over from the second they announced the nominees. But the Best Actor race was essentially between two people, even though people like myself were voting for the “never gonna happen” nominee.
Best Actor – 2003
And the nominees were…
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Ben Kingsley, The House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law, Cold Mountain
Bill Murray, Lost in Translation
Sean Penn, Mystic River (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2002
These two categories annoy me. In one, a completely undeserving person won, and in the other, I can’t see why that person outperformed everyone else. And I’m trying to. It’s really annoying. You can seriously watch all five of the performances back to back, and at best, maybe rank the winning performance third. At best. And the other one, well, we all know about The Nose. Well, actually, they’re both noses. That’s funny.
Best Actor – 2002
And the nominees were…
Adrien Brody, The Pianist
Michael Caine, The Quiet American
Nicolas Cage, Adaptation.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2001
This is one of those, you knew what they were gonna do like three weeks out. And you couldn’t do anything about it. One was deserving, one wasn’t. But, the one who wasn’t actually didn’t have competition, while the one who was arguably had people nominated that did better than they did. So, I guess we call it a wash. (Certainly not a whitewash though.)
(Get it, because the winners are both black.)
(Yeah, I went there. I know. But how could you not? I mean, wash — the joke practically set itself up.)
BEST ACTOR – 2001
And the nominees were…
Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind
Sean Penn, I Am Sam
Will Smith, Ali
Denzel Washington, Training Day
Tom Wilkinson, In the Bedroom (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2000
These are fun, because, it’s a mix of actor vs. performance. You look at the sheet of winners and be like, “They won for that?” And then your brain starts processing, and you’re like, “Well, that makes sense. But, not for that. Well, they do like them, and they probably deserve something, and…”
BEST ACTOR – 2000
Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls
Russell Crowe, Gladiator
Tom Hanks, Cast Away
Ed Haris, Pollock
Geoffrey Rush, Quills (more…)
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